Back in the good old days (cue the Hovis theme tune, trousers tucked into the socks instead of bicycle clips, jumpers for goalposts etc etc)'The Towers' used to have an advice line on Friday afternoons only. Gawd I tried for weeks to get thru, and finally did and had good advice from Ketan.

Back in the good old days... 'The Towers' used to have an advice line on Friday afternoons only. Gawd I tried for weeks to get thru, and finally did and had good advice from Ketan. Did anyone else use this service?

Have to hold my hand up and say that's a wheeze I came up with back in the dim and distant, to some extent in response to those magazines of the time with a note on their contents page saying something along the lines of 'Please don't phone our offices, as we're all far too busy and important to talk to readers.'

It was a victim of its own success, despite the best efforts of the editorial team of the time, and on more than one occasion completely crashed the Haymarket phone system!

Hence this forum, which I think serves some of the same function and additionally allows readers to share advice and experience 24/7.

By the way, note to those using our Sound Advice email address to sumit questions for possible publication in the magazine – we just don't have the resources to answer all those questions individually, only the ones we use in print.

So it's worth also posting your question on the forums, where you are much more likely to get a faster answer, either from one of the review team or those of us who wander the dark corridors of whathifi.com in the dead of night...

Back in the good old days... 'The Towers' used to have an advice line on Friday afternoons only. Gawd I tried for weeks to get thru, and finally did and had good advice from Ketan. Did anyone else use this service?

Have to hold my hand up and say that's a wheeze I came up with back in the dim and distant, to some extent in response to those magazines of the time with a note on their contents page saying something along the lines of 'Please don't phone our offices, as we're all far too busy and important to talk to readers.'

It was a victim of its own success, despite the best efforts of the editorial team of the time, and on more than one occasion completely crashed the Haymarket phone system!

Hence this forum, which I think serves some of the same function and additionally allows readers to share advice and experience 24/7.

By the way, note to those using our Sound Advice email address to sumit questions for possible publication in the magazine – we just don't have the resources to answer all those questions individually, only the ones we use in print.

So it's worth also posting your question on the forums, where you are much more likely to get a faster answer, either from one of the review team or those of us who wander the dark corridors of whathifi.com in the dead of night...

Thinking back it seems so quaint now to have someone picking up a phone and answering questions, and I suppose it depended who was available at any given time.

I called in 2004, approx 3 years before the forum started, and probably Ketan (poor chap) hasn't been the same since.